BAFTA Nominees Announced; AVATAR, THE HURT LOCKER, and AN EDUCATION Lead with 8 Nominations

The Brits certainly like our flicks with Avatar and The Hurt Locker scoring eight nominations each from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). However, they didn’t overlook one of their own accomplished films with An Education also grabbing eight nominations. But what’s really impressive about the BAFTA nominations isn’t where they’ll most likely overlap with the Oscar nominations, but where they’re going to diverge. District 9 has seven nominations and matches Avatar in every category except Best Picture and Best Director (but it also has a Best Screenplay nomination, while Avatar does not). I am a little surprised that in their Best Supporting Actor category, they overlooked Peter Capaldi for In the Loop, but you have to love a country where Andy Serkis can get nominated for Best Actor (that’s not meant ironically; it truly is great–we should’ve nominated him in 2002 for Best Supporting Actor for The Two Towers).

Hit the jump for the full list of nominees. Winners will be announced on February 21st.